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Windows is a very good operating system. Windows haters don't hate for technical reasons, but for religious or political reasons. And I like Microsoft. Microso

Windows is a very good operating system. Windows haters don't hate for technical reasons, but for religious or political reasons. And I like Microsoft. Microsoft makes some products, that's it. Not experiences, or promises of freedom. They are software products, with problems, qualities, end.

captainbland 4y ago
I think this is sometimes true but that for developers there are very good reasons to not prefer Windows. Mostly that local software management sucks on it unless you go with WSL, which is really good but does still have some limitations (speed, GPU compatibility, etc. - in general having to manage effectively two parallel filesystems gets in the way), and is at the end of the day essentially still Linux. Sure you can use e.g. chocolatey or even cygwin but these are a bit hit and miss at the best of times. Powershell is fine but a bit verbose for day to day terminal use compared to bash or nicer variants like zsh. Also apparently I set up my last dual boot configuration in such a way that Windows 10 decided that it owned my Ubuntu partition, but only during an upgrade which happened several months after the initial installation. This ruined an actively used install. Not exactly an ideal user experience. Ok, at a stretch maybe it was a bit my fault for not learning that the Windows 10 update system was a bit more... Ambitious than previous versions of Windows, but an explicit warning prompt before it happened wouldn't have gone amiss.
- zac23or 4y ago
  I'm a developer. I use Windows to program in Java, Delphi with SQLServer or SQLite. Git works great on Windows. I use WSL for Ruby, Python, Go with Postgres/Mysql. I don't dual boot Linux because 100% of the time linux automatically destroys the installation. The last time this happened was because I tried a Bluetooth joystick in Kubuntu. Kubuntu freezes and won't boot again. Because this last experience, I will never use Linux again in the metal again. To develop Games, Windows. I've never used SqlServer on Linux, and when I tried to use Postgres on Windows, Postgres start using using 100% of processor, it was a total mess. Resume: My development experience is compartemized, If is possible to use Windows, Ok, if not, I use Linux(WSL or emulated). I have already programmed on Mac OS, using XCode. XCode is an aberration. One of worst software development experience in my life. Ruby or Python development experience(in terminal with vim and a package manager like HomeBrew) is good on Mac OS, after installing a good terminal.
notfed 4y ago
I'll give you a technical reason: the Windows API isn't POSIX. Furthermore, it's a monstrosity compared to POSIX. If you've never felt this pain then be glad you've missed out on the multi-decade cross-platform low level programming nightmare. Modern stacks abstract all this away, and the youngins don't know what all the fuss was about.
- zac23or 4y ago
  >I'll give you a technical reason: the Windows API isn't POSIX Is not POSIX is a technical reason? I have more problems between Linux distributions than between Linux/Windows when it comes to programming. > If you've never felt this pain, be glad you missed the multi-decade low-level cross-platform programming nightmare. I started my professional career in 1999. I understand and worked at the time of cross-platform hell.
akho 4y ago
My previous laptop (until yesterday!) was a Thinkpad T460s. Not exactly an exotic model. It came with Windows, which I tried to use (with WSL) for more than two years before giving up. The fan turned on at random times in a way that was completely unrelated to what I was doing. WSL GUI apps (via VcXsrv) terminated on suspend, because the network stack is broken in Windows. At some point it started refusing to see wifi after resume. Ethernet got flakey. I thought those were hardware problems. On the software side, lack of package management made things outright medieval. Nothing uninstalls cleanly. System tools are a UI mess where you can’t find anything. It also required reboots all the time. Then I had a bottle of wine, wiped it, and installed NixOs. As it turns out, there were no hardware problems. Both wifi and Ethernet worked perfectly. No random fan noises or overheating except when I did something actually heavy. Software worked, did what I needed, and did not get in my way. Had to switch from Capture One to Darktable for photos. It’s not as good, but serviceable. I’m pretty sure all of the points above are technical. Your comment assumes that political reasons are somehow less important than technical ones. That is not true.
- zac23or 4y ago
  Of course, there are technical reasons not to use Windows. But it's not the norm. > Your comment assumes that political reasons are somehow less important than technical ones. This is not true. If politics is important to you, good for you, but I don't discuss politics.
hulitu 4y ago
> Windows is a very good operating system. When it doesn't gets in the way, yes. Unfortunately this is happening less and less with every release. If i would not be forced from my employer i would stay away from Win 10 as much as possible.
- zac23or 4y ago
  > When it doesn't gets in the way, yes How? My problem with Windows and basically all modern UIs on all operating systems is that we are in the dark age of UI. Everything is gamified, unnecessarily complex, slow...Windows is especially bad, with a lot of old and new UI mixed in with some kind of crazy indecision, incompetence, etc.

captainbland 4y ago

I think this is sometimes true but that for developers there are very good reasons to not prefer Windows. Mostly that local software management sucks on it unless you go with WSL, which is really good but does still have some limitations (speed, GPU compatibility, etc. - in general having to manage effectively two parallel filesystems gets in the way), and is at the end of the day essentially still Linux. Sure you can use e.g. chocolatey or even cygwin but these are a bit hit and miss at the best of times. Powershell is fine but a bit verbose for day to day terminal use compared to bash or nicer variants like zsh. Also apparently I set up my last dual boot configuration in such a way that Windows 10 decided that it owned my Ubuntu partition, but only during an upgrade which happened several months after the initial installation. This ruined an actively used install. Not exactly an ideal user experience. Ok, at a stretch maybe it was a bit my fault for not learning that the Windows 10 update system was a bit more... Ambitious than previous versions of Windows, but an explicit warning prompt before it happened wouldn't have gone amiss.

zac23or 4y ago
I'm a developer. I use Windows to program in Java, Delphi with SQLServer or SQLite. Git works great on Windows. I use WSL for Ruby, Python, Go with Postgres/Mysql. I don't dual boot Linux because 100% of the time linux automatically destroys the installation. The last time this happened was because I tried a Bluetooth joystick in Kubuntu. Kubuntu freezes and won't boot again. Because this last experience, I will never use Linux again in the metal again. To develop Games, Windows. I've never used SqlServer on Linux, and when I tried to use Postgres on Windows, Postgres start using using 100% of processor, it was a total mess. Resume: My development experience is compartemized, If is possible to use Windows, Ok, if not, I use Linux(WSL or emulated). I have already programmed on Mac OS, using XCode. XCode is an aberration. One of worst software development experience in my life. Ruby or Python development experience(in terminal with vim and a package manager like HomeBrew) is good on Mac OS, after installing a good terminal.

notfed 4y ago

I'll give you a technical reason: the Windows API isn't POSIX. Furthermore, it's a monstrosity compared to POSIX. If you've never felt this pain then be glad you've missed out on the multi-decade cross-platform low level programming nightmare. Modern stacks abstract all this away, and the youngins don't know what all the fuss was about.

zac23or 4y ago
>I'll give you a technical reason: the Windows API isn't POSIX Is not POSIX is a technical reason? I have more problems between Linux distributions than between Linux/Windows when it comes to programming. > If you've never felt this pain, be glad you missed the multi-decade low-level cross-platform programming nightmare. I started my professional career in 1999. I understand and worked at the time of cross-platform hell.

akho 4y ago

My previous laptop (until yesterday!) was a Thinkpad T460s. Not exactly an exotic model. It came with Windows, which I tried to use (with WSL) for more than two years before giving up. The fan turned on at random times in a way that was completely unrelated to what I was doing. WSL GUI apps (via VcXsrv) terminated on suspend, because the network stack is broken in Windows. At some point it started refusing to see wifi after resume. Ethernet got flakey. I thought those were hardware problems. On the software side, lack of package management made things outright medieval. Nothing uninstalls cleanly. System tools are a UI mess where you can’t find anything. It also required reboots all the time. Then I had a bottle of wine, wiped it, and installed NixOs. As it turns out, there were no hardware problems. Both wifi and Ethernet worked perfectly. No random fan noises or overheating except when I did something actually heavy. Software worked, did what I needed, and did not get in my way. Had to switch from Capture One to Darktable for photos. It’s not as good, but serviceable. I’m pretty sure all of the points above are technical. Your comment assumes that political reasons are somehow less important than technical ones. That is not true.

zac23or 4y ago
Of course, there are technical reasons not to use Windows. But it's not the norm. > Your comment assumes that political reasons are somehow less important than technical ones. This is not true. If politics is important to you, good for you, but I don't discuss politics.

hulitu 4y ago

> Windows is a very good operating system. When it doesn't gets in the way, yes. Unfortunately this is happening less and less with every release. If i would not be forced from my employer i would stay away from Win 10 as much as possible.

zac23or 4y ago
> When it doesn't gets in the way, yes How? My problem with Windows and basically all modern UIs on all operating systems is that we are in the dark age of UI. Everything is gamified, unnecessarily complex, slow...Windows is especially bad, with a lot of old and new UI mixed in with some kind of crazy indecision, incompetence, etc.